The Mapex Heavy Rock Kit - Kontakt 5 Pack is for all Native Instruments Kontakt 5 users. The pack comes with the latest version of the Drumdrops Kontakt Interface with new features including MIDI grooves, step sequencer and mic blend.

The Mapex Heavy Rock Kit is a monstrous sounding rock kit. The Mapex Saturn kit belongs to UK rock drummer Jason Bowld and is the kit he has used on all his recordings for the last five years for producers such as Andy Sneap, Romesh Dodangoda, Machine, Ulrich Wilde and Colin Richardson. This kit was also used to record the drum tracks album Heavy Rock Drops. What makes this kit special is it comes with three different Mapex snares and four different crash cymbals all carefully sampled in an incredible sounding live room.

The kit was recorded and mixed by UK producer, musician and engineer Martyn ' Ginge' Ford. The drummer was rock specialist Jason Bowld. Jason has drummed for Bullet For My Valentine, Pop Will Eat Itself, Killing Joke, Axewound and Pitchshifter.

The recording took place in the now closed Garden Studios in London. The studio had a legendary reputation being owned by John Foxx from Ultravox and Matt Johnson from The The. The live room was capable of providing a huge live sound and it is evident on these samples. At the centre of the Control Room was a Neve 8026 vintage console owned by Producer Craig Silvey and the microphones used ranged from vintage AKG C12's to B&K 4011's alongside the more traditional Sennheiser MD421's, AKG D12 and Shure SM57. With the vintage Neve and classic microphones we were soon able to get a great drum sound. All the microphones were recorded through either Neve 1084 or Neve 1076 mic pre's which were built into the console. With an external GML 8200 EQ on the kick microphones. The kit was them mixed in one of London's leading mix studios, The Engine Room on an SSL-G Series console.

The "Kontakt pack" has been designed exclusively for the latest version of Native Instruments Kontakt 5. The pack includes up to sixteen velocities of each articulation and in total it contains 7119 samples. Included in the Kontakt pack is the latest version of the Drumdrops Kontakt 5 interface.

In this version we have added a number of key new features (which we will soon be retro fitting to the older kits)

New Features include:

Groove Player - There are 458 Heavy Rock loops in total that are included in the MIDI Groove Player that are taken from 20 different drum tracks played by Jason Bowld and cover three different time signatures and a range of tempos.

Step Sequencer - The sequencer has eight channels allowing any eight of the articulations of the Mapex Kit to be selected and played. The sequencer contains 32 steps for each channel.

Groove Slicer – The Groove Slicer cuts each MIDI groove into thirty-two sections. These sections can then be played back in a different order to the original depending on what which of the three modes are selected.

Mic Blend - Here you can control the mix on the microphones used for each channel. You can vary the balance of the close microphone with the overheads and room microphones and on the kick control the close mic and sub.